Twilight levitated the big pair of scissors up to the long red ribbon and effortlessly snipped it in half. The throng of ponies clopped their hooves together in breathless anticipation of what would happen next.
"Alright everypony, just one thing left to do." Twilight's horn glowed, her magic sparking to activate the enchanted bulletin board which stood tall at the base of the Castle of Friendship.
The crowd gasped in amazement as the big black wall populated quickly with full color images and stories until it looked like a great glowing newspaper.
"Look, she sent a picture of Flurry Heart." Twilight pointed excitedly at a large image of the little smiling foal in a highchair, her face covered in orange baby food.
The crowd awed and exchanged wholesome doe-eyed glances at one another.
"And there's a recipe for chocolate marshmallow peanut brittle," squealed Pinkie Pie, examining the culinary nook in the lower left corner of the board.
"There's a month-long schedule of upcoming cultural center events for five different cities," swooned Rarity.
Ponies murmured excitedly, poring over every picture and article. Rainbow Dash laughed at a comic about clouds. "That's so true."
Twilight smiled. "Wow, this is really great. Feels like the dawn of a new era."
"Yeah, this is actually a lot cooler than the way you described it to me," agreed Spike. "It's like having five different newspapers all pinned together on the wall."
"Yes but not only that," added Twilight. "It gets updated twice a day. News is going to travel so fast now. When we get back from the Crystal Empire, I'm going to lobby to get boards like this put in every town. This is so exciting." Then she sighed, thinking about the long journey ahead of them. "Well, come on, Spike; we have to go pack."
She teleported the two of them back inside the castle, leaving behind a mob of utterly enraptured ponies. - - -
Twilight yawned as she stepped off of the train at Ponyville Station. "I don't know why train trips make me so sleepy," she mumbled. "Two weeks is too long to be gone from home. This place feels so unfamiliar now." She adjusted her saddlebag and headed for the stairs with Spike in tow.
"I don't remember seeing that when we left," muttered Spike quizzically.
Twilight looked to see red graffiti scrawled across the side of the station that read 'Feather brains go back to Cloudsdale.'
"How vulgar," she gasped, immediately beginning to scrub off the words with her magic. "Who would do that?"
They continued walking into town and soon discovered an oddly vacant Ponyville. The streets were practically empty and the stores were abandoned.
Spike's eyes shifted back and forth uneasily. "Is it just me or is this place practically a ghost town? Where is everyone? There's not even anypony at Sugar Cube Corner."
"Hmm…" Twilight squinted through the front windows into the empty bakery. Her eyes landed on a little placard behind the glass that read 'No blue coats welcome.'
"No blue coats welcome?" questioned Twilight. "What does that mean?"
The two exchanged worried glances and then quickened their pace toward the castle in hopes of finding answers to these mysteries. As they neared, the sound of dismayed murmuring began to grow until they came upon a sizeable crowd gathered at the base of the Castle of Friendship, all of them clamoring to see the new bulletin board.
"Oh, wow," exclaimed Twilight. "They're really liking the board. The whole town must be here." Her face suddenly fell in concern as she realized how abnormal all of this actually was. "Hope they at least slept while we were gone," she muttered, pushing her way through the sea of ponies. "Excuse me."
There were a few disconcerting gasps around her as she looked up at the news board and beheld a large, slapdash crayon doodle of her and Queen Chrysalis sitting across from each other at a table on an apparent date. She read the headline text in wide-eyed shock. "Twilight Sparkle has secret candle-lit tryst with Queen Chrysalis? That never happened!" Her eyes scanned across the spread, looking at the other articles.
"How to tell if your cutie mark is fake? Science fact of the day: The nuts that squirrels supposedly store for the winter are actually listening devices for an Equestria-wide surveillance campaign? What in the world is wrong with this thing?" Twilight zapped the board with a bolt of magic, trying to reset it but nothing happened. She tried again but it would not power down. She grunted in frustration before materializing a huge canvas tarp from thin air. She wrapped it snugly over the display, much to the crowd's chagrin.
“Hey, this is an attack on free speech,” cried one stallion.
"I don't know who said that but no, it isn't," replied Twilight.
"Now how am I gonna know what to be angry about?" Rainbow spat irately.
"And be afraid of?" added Fluttershy.
Twilight screwed up her face in bewilderment and then turned to address the whole group. "Everyone, the board seems to be malfunctioning but don't worry. I will get to the bottom of it. Just go about your business." Her eyes fell on The Cakes who were there in the crowd with their twins.
"Uh, Mr. and Mrs. Cake, I had a question, why is there a sign in your store window that says 'No blue coats?'"
"Oh, well, we just don't want any terrorists in our establishment," replied Carrot flippantly.
"Terrorists?" she blinked.
"You know, like Trixie. She's blue."
"We didn't even notice the connection until the bulletin board pointed it out," added Fluttershy thoughtfully.
"There's no connection between pony colors and disposition," Twilight put flatly. "I mean, Rainbow Dash is blue."
"I am only a quarter blue so it doesn't count," clarified Rainbow indignantly. "Don't rope me in with the blue coats."
"My dad is blue," continued Twilight.
"Well that figures," grumbled Applejack.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Twilight shot back, aghast.
"Explain the picture, Twilight."
"The picture is just someone's terrible crayon drawing, Applejack. Chrysalis hates me. Everyone knows that. I don't know what else to tell you. I can not believe I'm having this conversation right now." Her eyes ping-ponged around as she noticed that the mass of ponies was not dispersing.
"What are you going to do about enchanted spy bacteria in the water supply?" asked one mare urgently.
Twilight furrowed her brow in confusion. "Spy what now?"
"And the human invasion?" asked a stallion.
"What's a human?" she shrugged, becoming frustrated.
"How can we trust your leadership if you're giving kickbacks to diamond dogs?"
"I have no idea what you're-"
All at once every pony began shouting frantically over one another.
"Listen, this was all a misunderstanding," blurted Twilight. "The bulletin board is broken and posting strange things. Please quiet down. One at a time." Her eyes fixed on Pinkie Pie who was flailing her hooves and wagging her head, not voicing any concerns but just pointlessly adding to the chaos.
Twilight stamped her hoof. "Stop," she boomed. A shockwave exploded from her horn, freezing everypony in town where they stood. She let out an exasperated sigh and looked back at the covered board.
"What could have possibly…" Her words trailed off as she realized the only possible explanation. "Discord," she shouted into the air. "Discord, I know it's you!" She looked about, waiting but there came no answer. "DISCORD!" The earth trembled from the fury of her angry blast.
In a flash of green light, the chaos lord appeared in a pink spandex unitard and sweatband.
"You're supposed to say it in front of the bathroom mirror in the dark but I'll spot you this once."
"Discord, did you tamper with the bulletin board?"
He thought for a moment before his eyes suddenly lit up in enthused remembrance. "Oh, how's that going?" He leaned in closer to count the lines in Twilight's ensuing scowl. "One, two, three, four… Seven! A seven scowl wrinkle rating on the Twilight scale! What a rousing success."
"Ugh! Everyone is upset and babbling about nonsense I don't even understand."
"Sounds like my kind of party." Discord snapped his claws, releasing just Fluttershy from Twilight's spell.
"Oh, Fluttershy, whisper sweet nonsense in my ear."
Fluttershy leaned in close to Discord. "The attack on Cadance and Shining's wedding was an inside job perpetrated by Princess Luna. Celestia banished her to the moon again for it but did it in secret. The Luna everyone thinks is her is actually a body double."
"Oooo, I love that one," Discord squealed in delight. "What else?"
"Birds are a hoax. That's why I don't allow them at my sanctuary anymore."
Discord scratched his chin in bewilderment. "I'm going to need more details on that one."
"Discord," Twilight chastised. "You had your fun. Fix this now. Tell them you made up all of those crazy stories."
He rolled his eyes and sighed. "Fine," He snapped his claws again, releasing the rest of the crowd and restarting the blast of raucous chatter.
"Quiet," thundered twilight frustratedly.
The ponies stopped talking abruptly.
"Everyone listen. Discord has something to say."
Discord grumbled to himself irritably. "Everyone, I hijacked the bulletin board hours after Twilight left town on her trip. Everything you've read on it for the past two weeks has been baseless claptrap, my favorite kind of claptrap. It was all just a joke. I made up everything… except that thing about birds. Not sure where that came from. Kudos to Fluttershy on the original content though."
The ponies all looked at one other skeptically.
"You think we're gonna fall for that?" scoffed Applejack.
"Fall for… what?" shrugged Twilight confusedly.
"Yer little scheme to cover up the truth ain't gonna work just because you got Discord in on the act."
"Yeah," added Rainbow belligerently.
Twilight blinked. "What is happening right now?" She turned to face Discord. "Undo this confusion spell immediately," she commanded with impatient anger.
Discord threw up his hands. "It's not a spell; all I did was play around with the board. That's it."
"What? Well then use time travel or revert their brains to back before you meddled with the board."
"Uh, okay." Discord snapped his claws once more to summon a floating desktop computer with CRT monitor. He fiddled around in the settings with a rollerball mouse to select the system recovery option. Then he watched the progress bar sweep quickly to its end. The crowd stuttered once in unison like a stuck record. "Aaaaand done. That should do it." He looked up from the screen and smiled tentatively.
Twilight listened to the riled group of ponies, noticing no actual change in their agitated demeanor.
"The weather team's chemtrails made all mah crops gay!"
"Sombra did nothing wrong!"
"They don't sound any better," bemoaned Twilight.
Discord right clicked and opened the properties window. "Uh… You're not going to believe this but their condition is so aggressive that it transcends the boundaries of spacetime. I'm not really sure how to fix this," he concluded sheepishly.
Twilight facehooved. "You are not serious right now. This is a disaster." She put the mob of disgruntled ponies back in stasis and then teleported her five closest friends to a spare room in the castle. She came back to get Spike and berate Discord once again. "Get in the castle," she growled. - - -
"Why did you imprison us here?" demanded Rarity, her eyes scanning the spacious and well upholstered guest room.
"You're not imprisoned exactly; this is quarantine," explained Twilight. "I'm convinced that your severe confusion makes you a danger to yourself and others so I'm keeping everyone here to study you until we can fix whatever is wrong with you. I'm trying to help you."
Discord grinned and waved to them through the one way glass he'd installed in the wall. Pinkie jumped gleefully on the large four poster bed while Rainbow rifled through rows of books on the shelves.
"There's a bathroom, big bed, sleeping bags and a kitchenette if you get hungry," continued Twilight. "We have research to do and it might take a while, so if you get bored, I also got you some board games and a wide selection of books from my library. However, since you appear afflicted with an inability to discern fantasy from reality, I will be limiting the collection to nonfiction at this time so as not to further confuse you."
"Do you have any uncensored books, the ones that show real pictures of the moon?" asked Rainbow, holding up a science book.
Unsure of her exact meaning, Twilight just answered the question in its simplest form. "Yes, the one you're holding right now in fact."
"No, this one shows it as a sphere like all the other lying ones."
"What fresh hell is this?" muttered Twilight under her breath. "That book shows the moon as a sphere because the moon is a sphere," she replied patiently. "Well, to be more precise, it's actually a slight ovoid because of the gravitational forces of our planet acting upon it."
"No, it's actually a cube," declared Rainbow vehemently. "All the illustrations in books have been altered by the government to make it look round."
Twilight bit her lip as she tried to filter the haughty condescension out of her words. "Rainbow, you don't need a book illustration to figure this out; you can just look up in the sky and see that it's not a cube."
Rainbow shook her head. "It only appears round because of refracting light through the… curved atmosphere-"
"You have no idea what you're talking about," sighed Twilight dismissively.
"Look, I can't remember word for word the whole scientifical explanation for why it looks round when it's not-.
"Because there isn't one," droned Twilight.
"The important thing," blurted Rainbow, "is I did my own research instead of just looking at propaganda and it's a government coverup and they're not gonna trick me anymore."
Twilight's eyes narrowed in contempt. "Rainbow. It's a sphere. We wouldn't see moon phases like we do if it were a cube."
Rainbow shook her head with a condescending smirk. "Oh, Twilight, you only believe that moon phase stuff because you've been brainwashed by an elitist educational system. You've just been told what to believe and aren't a free thinker like the rest of us."
"What?” blurted Twilight aghast. “I'm not brainwashed, you are!"
"Oh, Twilight. That's exactly what a brainwashed pony would say. You’re so confused, you have everything upside down and backwards."
“I’ve spent my entire academic life researching in accordance with the scientific method and networking with the greatest minds of our time to gain the knowledge I have. You spent two weeks worshiping a broken bulletin board which was clearly about as edifying as sniffing glue.”
“The bulletin board wasn’t broken. It was telling it like it is.”
“No, it was literally doing the opposite,” blasted Twilight, stamping her hoof in frustration. "You're gaslighting me and you probably don't even know what that is."
Rainbow crossed her forelegs smugly. "Sounds like you're just trying to find an excuse for being outclassed by my amazing debate skills."
Twilight's eye twitched as she grinded her teeth, her whole body shaking with rage. "Please excuse me, one moment," she hissed, frothy spittle gathering on her lips. She teleported to the map room and screamed at the top of her lungs. Then she did it again and again.
Discord sat in the hall at the one way window, listening to her distant wails reverberate through the crystal walls before devolving into a string of obscenities which culminated in a violent crash. She blinked back into the observation space, panting, face flush.
“Feel better?” muttered Discord.
“Woooo…" she giggled manically. "I was not prepared for that caliber of intellectual regression. I feel embarrassed for engaging in such a stupid and meritless argument but there are zero reasons to believe the moon is a cube! None! And it's not just that. How do you get to the point where you have so little self awareness that you can enter into an argument with no evidence, step on a bunch of rakes and then take a victory lap?"
Discord screwed up his face, mulling it over for a minute. "So now what?"
Twilight sat in a chair and looked up at the ceiling. "We do some preliminary diagnostic tests and then hit the books." - - -
Session 1
"Do you want it to say 'Danger. Stupid zone: Do not enter' or 'Brain damage area: Keep out?'" asked Spike as he finished the coat of red on the second sign intended to cordon off the group of still frozen ponies outside the castle.
"Do stupid zone," muttered Twilight absently flipping through her charts. Then to Discord, "They don't appear to have any sort of head trauma or brain control parasite."
"I told you, all I did was manipulate the board," he yawned at the window.
"I know. I just want to make sure we eliminate all of the variables before we decide what this is because I've never seen anything like it before, at least not to this degree. It looks like the solution here is going to have to be psychology."
Twilight gathered up her pencil and clipboard and teleported into the tank with her friends.
"Okay, thank you for being patient with the tests, everypony."
"I wasn't patient, growled Rainbow."
"I wasn't either," added Rarity.
"Please just take the complement," muttered Twilight under her breath. "Now that that's out of the way, we can begin your treatment and rehabilitation."
"For what?" asked Pinkie, mystified.
"Your confusion, for lack of a better word," she answered. "Your inexplicably deep seated belief in many things that are not just grossly incorrect but also easily disproved with even just a passing moment of scrutiny from the average kindergartner."
She scribbled a thought on her floating clipboard. "I'll skip past my concerns about turmoil, war and total societal collapse if this issue spreads unchecked and instead start with the obvious personal conflicts. We're all friends here. We always help each other out but we also, from time to time, rely on each other in the occasional very dire situation. For that reason especially, we need to all be grounded in reality and you need to trust the things that I tell you because someday in the future when something really bad happens and you don't believe me, in a worst case scenario it could get you and everyone you care about killed. So please believe me when I say that I'm doing this for your own good."
Rainbow crossed her forelegs as she fluttered idly in the air. "Why should we believe someone who's completely corrupt and fraternizes with the enemy?"
"Because I didn't actually do any of those things that you saw or read about on the board."
"You're gaslighting us," Rainbow retorted. "This is some kind of a reeducation camp!"
Twilight's pencil suddenly snapped in half. She grumbled to herself before mending it with magic. "I'm pretty disappointed that you find a malfunctioning bulletin board more trustworthy than your good friend of several years, Rainbow. But maybe I shouldn't take things too personally from a pony that's too out of it right now to even know her own coat color."
"I know what color my coat is," she shot back. "It's cerulean."
"Which is a subcategory of what primary color?"
"Cerulean."
"It's blue, Rainbow. Your coat is blue."
"No, it isn't," she shouted back in a rage.
"There's nothing wrong with that but the fact of the matter is that you are blue and there's nothing you can do about it."
Rainbow covered her ears and flew into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.
Twilight turned slowly back to the others and put on an awkward smile. "Well, let's start with one on ones. Fluttershy, would you please have a seat at the table with me?" She decided to single out Fluttershy, thinking that she'd be the most agreeable and receptive out of the group. The two of them sat down across from each other at a little round table.
"So what's on your mind today?" asked Twilight, amicably.
"Well, I can't stop thinking about how Celestia abducts and devours foals," replied Fluttershy flippantly.
Twilight's mouth dropped open in horror. "Wha- what? That's completely- Where did you hear such an outlandish story?"
"The bulletin board."
"And why do you think it's real?"
"Because I want it to be real."
"Why in the world would you want that to be real?"
Fluttershy though for a moment. "Um… I don't know."
"You do realize that wanting something to be real and something actually being real are two different things, right? And you know that believing that something is real doesn't make it real?
"No," shrugged Fluttershy.
Twilight sighed. "Uh… okay. Why don't I give you a little visual example?" She summoned an ice cream carton from the aether and set it down in front of Fluttershy. "Alright, Fluttershy, what do you believe is in this carton?"
"Ice cream," she smiled.
"You want it to be ice cream too, don't you?" Twilight nodded.
"Yes, I do."
Twilight yanked off the lid with her magic and inverted the carton, releasing a little cascade of white packing peanuts onto the table.
"Oh no. No ice cream in here. Now how does that make you fee-"
Before she could finish her sentence, Fluttershy grabbed one of the little foam pellets and popped it into her mouth. It squeaked as she chewed. "Mmm… Strawberry. My favorite."
Twilight's mouth dropped open again. "That's not ice cream! "Those are packing peanuts! They're not even edible! Are you completely insane?"
"Ice cream?" gasped Pinkie Pie excitedly. "I want some!" She hunched over the table and began ravenously shoveling packing peanuts into her open gob.
"It's not ice cream," Twilight repeated in bewildered alarm. "It's packing peanuts! You can tell that they're packing peanuts because they look like packing peanuts, they feel like packing peanuts and they taste like packing peanuts!"
"But they came out of an ice cream box and I want them to be ice cream," argued Fluttershy, tossing another pellet in her mouth.
"They're room temperature polystyrene foam puffs that you're eating like potato chips," shrieked Twilight at wit's end. "How can you possibly think they're ice cream? STOP EATING THEM!" She frantically scooped the mess back into the ice cream carton just as Rainbow caught sight of it.
"Hey, I didn't get any ice cream," she complained angrily.
Twilight teleported out of the room along with the carton and remaining packing peanuts. "Discord," she panted, "remove the butter knives from the kitchenette." She looked down at the open ice cream container and levitated one of the foam pellets up to her nose to sniff it curiously. It carried the faint and unappealing scent of sterile synthetic material as expected. She grimaced as she hesitantly bit off the end before immediately spitting it out. "Ugh." - - -
Session 2
"Psychologically I'm wondering if I should be approaching this issue as a type of addiction or a cult deprogramming."
"Addiction? Like a twelve step program?" scoffed Discord. "Good luck getting a group of ponies who can't even admit that packing material isn't ice cream to admit that they have a problem."
"Yeah… Well, this book on deprogramming suggests that you begin by discrediting the abuser or head figure. We don't really have one in this scenario so I guess we're talking about the bulletin board itself. Maybe that would be an easier route."
Inside the tank, Pinkie Pie had popped the lid off of the Marenopoly box. "I need a new moral panic distraction," she lamented, unfolding the game board on the floor. "I'm starting to think thoughts."
"Just hyperfixate on one of the old ones and keep regurgitating it in your brain so nothing else gets in, darling," suggested Rarity as she sorted through the little plastic pieces. She grabbed the spinner with her magic and began trying to mount it on its designated spot on the board but she was having a difficult time getting all three little prongs to hook in all three holes at once.
"Oh, can somepony help me put this in? This dreadful piece seems to have been rigged by the world government."
"I got it," replied Rainbow, standing up. She thoughtlessly stamped her hoof several times on the little game fixture, flattening it and snapping off several of the pegs and prongs.
Rarity looked wide-eyed down at the ruined spinner which still sat out of its proper nest on the gameboard. "Oh, that's lovely," she gushed. She spun it with her magic, unable to make it rotate even a single revolution with one go. "And it works even better than before! You should be a professional repair pony," she commended with complete sincerity.
"Are you seeing this?" mumbled Twilight, peering disdainfully over her book.
"Ugh," grunted Discord in disgust. "They're too unhinged, even for me. Chaos and the asinine aren't fun when my would-be victims thrive in them… or at least believe that they do. They don't even know which way is up and they're happy about it."
Twilight continued speed reading while they played their board game and Discord left to peruse the library for relevant research materials.
"The spinner is rigged but only when I don't like what it landed on," said Fluttershy.
"Me too," agreed Rainbow.
"Well, the card I just drew was a false flag draw," declared Rarity. "It was actually…" she flipped over the deck and began sifting through it. "This card."
The game went on like that until all of the players declared themselves winners and began arguing with one another. Twilight figured that then was an opportune moment to cut back in and make her case for reason.
"Girls, it's fine. It's just a game. It's not winning that matters; it's the fun you have."
"That's just something losers say," Rarity deadpanned.
"Rarity, you cheated throughout the entire game and then accused everyone else of cheating after you still managed to lose anyway," retorted Twilight matter-of-factly. "But I digress. It's time to start your second rehab session. Ready to begin your journey back to sanity… again?"
"She's going to indoctrinate us," whispered Fluttershy fearfully.
"No, Fluttershy, I'm simply going to steer you away from bad sources of information that are trying to mislead you."
"She's going to indoctrinate us," repeated Fluttershy.
Twilight pursed her lips in frustration but continued. "I've already explained to everyone that the integrity of the bulletin board was compromised and everything posted on it during my absence was complete fiction but you don't need to take my word for it. Many of the stories debunk themselves if you just stop and think about them.
“For instance, did you ever stop and ask yourself 'what does the government get out of making everyone believe that the moon is round?' Anyone have an answer for that question? Anyone? She looked between them expectantly. The ponies appeared to think, and exchange unsure looks but were unable to come up with an explanation.
"You don’t know?" She shrugged in feigned surprise. "Then why would they spend so much time altering books and lying about it if it's not going to get them anything? No one maintains a global conspiracy just for fun. That story was just silly nonsense."
"Here’s something: the bulletin board was meant to relay news from Canterlot. It was set up to be updated only by Princess Celestia herself. You all knew this from the very beginning. So tell me why would Celestia report news that she preys on foals?"
"Because-" blurted Rainbow before stopping short with a puzzled look.
"Because what?" proded Twilight impatiently. You see? None of this checks out. You're so addicted to sensationalism, you'll latch onto anything and not even question its validity as long as it gives you a rush. We need to be a lot more discerning with the things we internalize and ask questions before we start to believe in them."
"Now the uncomfortable feeling you're likely experiencing right now is called cognitive dissonance. You are probably trying to rationalize continuing to believe in the board even after being confronted with the naked fact that the things that it says make absolutely no sense."
Rarity covered her ears with her hooves but Twilight quickly pried them away with her magic. "It burns," shrieked Rarity. "It burns! Make it stop!'
"You are completely safe, Rarity. Your brain is just trying to do critical thinking. It's a completely normal thing for advanced life forms like us and you were doing it just fine on your own two weeks ago. Let your brain do its job. It's perfectly normal to take in new information about something and then change what you believe about it. Now, I have one more question. This one I'd like to ask the Element of Honesty specifically. The one pony in Equestria who could never intentionally deceive anyone. Don't worry, it's a very short and simple question. Applejack, are you happier with your life now that you've started listening to the bulletin board? Has becoming afraid of birds and eating canned dog food to thwart my supposed food based spy operations improved your life?"
Applejack bit her lip apprehensively and remained silent.
"I mean it must have, right?" continued Twilight. "You wouldn't voluntarily keep doing something that was pointlessly inconvenient, angering and made you miserable? That would be pretty silly, wouldn't it?"
Applejack's expression became strained, her face flush and sweaty as if she were fighting to keep her mouth shut.
"Applejack? Are you happier now?" repeated Twilight bluntly.
Applejack clamped one eye shut as the veins in her forehead pulsed. Twilight's eyes bulged as blood began to drip from Applejack's nose, followed quickly by blood from her eyes.
"Applejack? Applejack, stop! It's fine; I withdraw my question! You don't have to answer!"
Applejack gasped in relief and panted to catch her breath as blood drops continued to patter on the floor.
"Ugh… Who's… burnin' toast?" she sniffed dazedly before collapsing to the floor.
The room gasped.
"Applejack?" Twilight checked the pulse of the unresponsive mare.
"Oh my! We need to get her fresh air and elevate her legs," declared Fluttershy.
"Wait, Fluttershy, that sounds like something you read in a science book or learned from someone who actually knows what they're talking about," warned Rarity.
"Oh no, you're right," gasped Fluttershy. "We can't do that… but what do we do?"
"I know, everyone," declared Twilight in mock excitement. She dropped her pencil on Applejack's side. "We'll just use our omnipotent suspension of disbelief powers to pretend that this pencil will help her since reality and facts don't matter and we can manifest any outcome we want if we just ignore them hard enough."
"I'd say that's a good idea if it wasn't coming from you," quipped Rainbow.
Twilight's eyes narrowed. "Well, good news, Rainbow. I was being facetious. Don't let me get in the way of administering whatever braindead medical intervention tickles your fancy."
"Twilight, do something," screeched Spike, banging urgently on the window.
Twilight let out an aggravated sigh before teleporting the both of them away. - - -
Session 3
"Applejack will be just fine," Twilight assured everyone in the tank. "She's resting right now and will be back when she feels well enough."
"Twilight! We thought a lot about what you said and we realized something," said Pinkie excitedly.
"You did?" gasped Twilight. "You realized that you're all being obnoxious ignoramuses?"
"No. We figured out who was posting the messages on the board."
Twilight's face fell. "Yeah… It was Discord," she replied flatly. "We already-"
"No. It wasn't Discord or Celestia. It was an anonymous whistleblower in Celestia's inner circle who was leaking the information to expose her. It's actually part of a prophecy where-"
Twilight sighed disappointedly and teleported from the room, back to her chair where Pinkie approached to bang urgently on the glass.
"Open your eyes to the truth, Twilight!"
"You're wasting your time," said Rainbow. "She censored the bulletin board to silence the whistleblower and keep word from getting out. She's obviously part of the cabal of foal eaters. We've been taken as prisoners for knowing too much."
Twilight gazed listlessly at them through the glass. "I wish they were addicted to snorting moon sugar or captured by an evil warlock," she mumbled absently. "I could deal with that. I don't know what to do here. I can’t talk sense into someone who refuses to hear sense. I can't defeat the cyclical reasoning of 'The reason there's no evidence to support my conspiracy theory is because it was covered up by another conspiracy.' It’s like the harder I try to pull them out of the hole, the heavier they get." She rubbed her face in frustration. "Did you seriously post a story saying that Celestia eats foals?"
"Yes," admitted Discord.
"You can't just say stuff like that; it's irresponsible and completely untrue."
"A: I can say whatever I like and Six: that claim was so cartoonishly ridiculous, I never thought anyone would believe it."
Twilight's eyes narrowed. "And yet, here we are."
"I just wanted to pull a prank, not start a cult."
"And yet, here we are," she repeated in the exact same intonation.
"I really do want to fix this," he continued. "At least marginally more so than I want to just leave."
"Well what are we going to do? Magic doesn't work and I'm not sure that they actually meet the minimum threshold of brain activity anymore to be subject to psychology. You'd think an alicorn and a chaos lord could figure this out!" She turned to blather angrily through the speaker. "What do you get out of listening to a stupid broken bulletin board?"
"All of my problems are someone else's fault," Rainbow shot back.
"I don't have to have any harsh introspective moments where I question if I'm wrong about anything because now I'm never wrong about anything," replied Rarity.
"It's validating that everything that makes me uncomfortable is fake or an evil conspiracy against me including the consequences of my own actions," added Fluttershy.
"Gives me an excuse to hate ponies I already hated but couldn't find a socially acceptable pretext to," admitted the disembodied voice of Applejack.
Pinkie shrugged. "Thinking is too hard. It's way easier to have the bulletin board do the thinking for me. Plus, blaming stuff on whatever and then just being angry about it forever is a lot easier than diplomacy or actual problem solving."
Discord stroked his beard. "You have to admit, it does sound pretty amazing when they put it like that."
"No it doesn't," Twilight shot back. "It sounds like a cheap coping mechanism for losers who can't face reality."
A police officer's uniform materialized on Discord. "Shots fired," he reported, pinching the radio on his shoulder.
"So you might be able to manufacture a feeling of comfort or superiority but what does ignoring reality and ducking responsibility ultimately get you. Your problems aren't going to just disappear; they'll continue to get worse. This whole mindset is tantamount to eating candy while your house burns down instead of grabbing a water bucket."
"Maybe we should find a specialist who deals with these sorts of things?" suggested Discord.
"We could ask Celestia or Luna," offered Twilight.
He frowned and twiddled his claws anxiously. "Can we maybe keep them out of the loop on this one?"
Twilight rolled her eyes. "Fine. There's probably no point, anyway. We already know more magic isn't going to fix it and it's not like a cannibal and Luna's body double are going to help convince them of anything. I wish I had a close friend who was an expert on cults and psychological manipulation."
The two paused, gestating on that oddly specific fantasy.
"Maybe someday," shrugged Discord. - - -
Session 4
"So it's like LARPing but forever," suggested Spike.
"Exactly," replied Discord. "You have to do it for the rest of your life and you die in character."
"No," argued Twilight. "It's not 'forever;' the psychiatrist is going to figure this out and we'll reverse it in due time and get everything back to normal."
Just then, Dr. Gray Matter staggered out from the tank and collapsed, sweating in a chair before the window. She swallowed and shook her head mournfully. "My condolences for your loss. There is a great evil at work here."
Twilight nodded. "Yeah, that's Rainbow Dash, the one I warned you about."
"No, you don't understand; this place needs to be cleansed."
The alicorn furrowed her brow in puzzlement. "Cleansed? I'm sorry, I thought you were a psychiatrist who specializes in deprogramming."
The doctor turned to look her straight in the eyes. "I am, and this is my professional assessment: burn this whole town to the ground ASAP."
Twilight’s eyes bulged in horror. "Uh, well, thank you for your services, doctor. We'll be in touch if I have any more questions."
"Well, hold on, let's hear her out at least," suggested Discord, scratching his chin with tentative intrigue.
Twilight shot a death glare at him. "Discord," she hissed. "Will you please show the nice mare out?"
With a sigh, Discord teleported her back to the city in an instant.
“Yeah, we’re not doing that," said Twilight. "There has to be a better solution and I’m going to find it.” - - -
Session 13
"I know you need to eat,” spat Twilight to the group. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to procure food for you that’s, in your view, trustworthy. Think about it though, I have a flawless track record of not poisoning you. Please just eat what I get for you.”
"We'll boil the water," said Pinkie Pie, "Just get us basic unopened cooking ingredients like flour, salt and butter and we'll go from there."
“Fine," grunted Twilight indignantly. "But you're all pretty uppity about food for ponies who ate packing peanuts voluntarily. I don't even understand how you have anything to complain about when you can just wholeheartedly believe whatever you want. If you have a problem, then why don't you just believe the problem is solved and everything is great? Believe you don't need to sleep anymore and stop sleeping. Believe you don't need to eat anymore and stop eating."
"I'm surprised it hasn't occurred to you that needing to eat food is probably just a hoax anyway propagated by the food lobbyists or something." You have this unprecedented superpower and you waste it on inventing stuff be upset about."
"Ya don't get it," growled Applejack. "Ah need lots a problems ta be angry or scared about at all times ta distract mah brain from thinkin', 'cuz if it thinks, mah whole world view starts ta fall apar-"
Pinkie slapped a hoof over Applejack's mouth before she could finish.
"Worldview?" scoffed Twilight. "What worldview? The one you developed over the two weeks I was gone? You've barely settled in. Just ditch it like a fad. It's fine to quit and admit to yourself that you were wron-"
In unison the five ponies covered their ears and let out a sustained shriek to drown out Twilight.
Twilight flinched and clamped her hooves over her ears too as their screech continued. "You were wrong," she screamed back at them. "Please, just stop and come back to reason! Ugh!"
Twilight sat down on the floor and began to bawl desperately against their frantic screaming, their communal wail only crescendoing.
"Celestia on a bike," marveled Discord at the rattling observation window.
"You're being stupid on purpose," screamed Twilight. "This is a joke! You're all playing a joke on me! No one could possibly be this divorced from reality! AHHHHHHHHHH!"
Twilight teleported out of the cacophony and back to the observation area where she slammed her head down on the counter, heaving with frustrated rage.
"Uh… Twilight?" Discord tapped her on the shoulder.
“Don’t touch me," she snarled. "This is the worst thing you’ve ever done!”
“Oh, you’re being melodramatic. It’s not like they’re dead.”
She rolled her head to the side to look at him. "In a sense they kind of are. They’re almost completely detached from reality. I can no longer engage with any of them on an intellectual level about anything. We don’t even share a basic framework of reason. Their entire sense of self has been absorbed by their roles as caretakers for this elaborate fantasy world. I hardly even recognize them because of how you've damaged them in a way comparable to sustaining a TBI. They think I'm evil and stupid and that everyone else that I love and respect is also evil and stupid and anything I say to dissuade them from that view is seen as lies which only further confirms to them that I'm evil and stupid. How are we supposed to defend Equestria as the Elements of Harmony when I'm beginning to question if our friendship is even worth saving? Because let me tell you, if I'd met Rainbow or Applejack for the first time this week, I'd just walk away and not give them a second look."
"It was an accident," sighed Discord. "But if it's any consolation, I am truly… and sincerely… bored right now. And I really do mean that from the bottom of my heart."
"Maybe you'd be less bored if you helped more," she bristled.
"It's just an endurance test," he replied dismissively. "They have to give up eventually. They can't just be like this forever." - - -
Session 86
A weary and demoralized Twilight stood before a chalkboard in front of a row of desk chairs and addressed the group. "Can anyone tell me why the die landed on a six instead of a one?"
Everyone's hoof went up.
"Fluttershy," she called.
"Birds," blurted Fluttershy.
"No, probably not. Let's try again. Rarity?"
"A consortium of subterranean humans is surely behind this," expounded Rarity.
"No," growled Twilight through her teeth. She tapped the chalkboard with her hoof. "Think back to Occam's Razor and how the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. The vast majority of the time when something happens, big or small, there isn't an elaborate subversive conspiracy underneath the surface. So what's the simplest explanation for the undesired outcome in this story? Rainbow?"
"Celestia used-"
"No," Twilight snapped, rolling her eyes.
"You didn't even let me finish," spat Rainbow.
"Because you were about to float another conspiracy theory and you know we're not looking for another conspiracy theory; we're looking for the most reasonable explanation."
"Who's to say my explanation isn't correct? Everyone's opinion is valid."
"Valid, perhaps in that they all meet the textbook definition of an opinion, yes. Valid as in possessing the same merit and relevance to what is actually happening in reality, no. Disregard for a moment that this is all hypothetical. Your hypothesis, unless I missed my guess, is entirely based off of your unfounded misgivings against Celestia and not any actual evidence or deductive reasoning, therefore it has such a low probability of being factual that it's not worth discussing. However if, by some miracle, it turned out to be correct, it would be A: entirely coincidental and B: still not validating in any way to your line of thinking because A: it was entirely coincidental. You can say this and that without any evidence to your claim and even manage to be right sometimes like the proverbial broken clock but ninety-nine times out of a hundred, this," She tapped the board frustratedly, "is going to get you a lot closer to fact than some improvisational conspiracy fantasy featuring whatever recurring boogeymare that lives in your head. If you're going to play darts with a blindfold on, I'm not going to keep score. Make sense to you?"
"Well what about wind, you hypocrite?" blasted Rainbow.
Why did she even bother trying to argue these things with them anymore? She could make the most logical and compelling case in the world and they'd just feign incredulity or ignore it entirely. Might as well be debating with an ant, she thought.
"What about it?" asked Twilight, her voice suddenly deflating. "We've already played this game before, Rainbow. You switch topics when you're losing." Twilight turned back to the board and began scratching with her chalk, intending to ignore whatever came out of Rainbow's mouth next.
"There's plenty of evidence that proves that wind can't exist naturally and you just shut your eyes to it because it doesn't support your narrative."
Do not engage, Twilight thought. Do not engage. Do not engage. Do not engage. She's just trying to goad you into another quagmire debate about garbage that wastes your time and accomplishes nothing.
"What ever happened to the law 'for every action, there is a reaction?' So where's the action? Someone has to make the wind. It's basic science."
Twilight's chalk stick snapped in half against the board, the end falling to the floor. She licked her lips before turning around slowly to face the class. "I'm sorry," she chuckled warmly. "I think I must have misheard you just now. It almost sounded like, without any actual understanding or respect for the field, you just lazily stapled the most prestigious mental discipline known to ponies to your completely baseless and unscientific opinion in some desperate attempt to give it legitimacy."
Rainbow crossed her forelegs obstinately. "And what if I did?"
Twilight grabbed Rainbow's chair with her magic and scooted it ominously slow across the floor toward the front. Rainbow's defiant scowl evaporated into uncomfortableness and then fear as she inched ever closer to twilight's gentle but crazed smile framed by a stringy disheveled mane. She only came to a stop when the two were almost muzzle to muzzle.
"Tell me 'It's basic science' again, blue girl and find out," she smirked expectantly.
Suddenly Twilight appeared back in the observation area from a forced teleportation. "Ugh, Discord," she raved. "We were on the verge of a breakthrough!"
"The only thing you were on the verge of breaking through was Rainbow's teeth. This may be the only time that you ever hear this from me but maybe we should dial it back a little. Remember, it's supposed to be a comedy."
"Listen, I've been frustrated and short with them many times now but I think any sane pony would agree that I've shown them far more patience than they deserve. I've so had it with them. I don't want them to just wake up and be normal again anymore. I will no longer feel fulfilled until I have successfully forced them to see reason, they admit that they were wrong and stupid and then they are mortified and emotionally destroyed because all the dumb things they believed were wrong. Their smug ignorance and their aggressive gullibility feel like a personal attack on me and everything I stand for and I want petty revenge for it. Does that sound like something the Princess of Friendship would say? Does that sound like a friend at all?"
"You're asking the wrong hodgepodge, shrugged Discord, idly spinning his decapitated head on one claw like a basketball while talking out the hole in his neck. "I do know that the fact and reality about facts and reality is that they're just boring and unappealing so much of the time. It's clear that salacious garbage and fantasy are much more fun and accessible. Plus it's like you get to be part of a special secret club that's always in the know… even though they can't even tell the difference between fixed and broken."
"Wait," he gasped, cramming his head back on his neck. "I've just had an epiphany. What we need to do to sell them on reality is to make reality look like a secret conspiracy."
"Huh?"
He sat up, gesticulating exuberantly. "It's all in the presentation. In a sense, what really happened was a conspiracy. We just need to accentuate that to make it more palatable to them."
"We already told them and they rejected it," groaned Twilight.
"Right, because we told them in a boring way. The true story is that it was all just a lark. Where's the scandal? Where's the secret nefarious plot against them that they're so addicted to? We have to dress it up like that."
"What are you proposing exactly?"
He cleared his throat. "If I candidly outline some sort of fiendish psyop to trick all of Ponyville by hijacking the bulletin board but present it in a book labeled 'Discord's Secret Journal: Do Not Open' and then plant it somewhere where your friends will discover it, they'll eat it up. They'll be forced to have a mental reckoning and question everything the board told them."
Twilight rubbed her chin with one hoof. "Hmm… That is a much more enticing setup. There's a villain to focus on and them uncovering a supposed secret on their own would lend the story the legitimacy that our distrusted word can't give it. This could work."
Discord summoned a floating tome with an embellished cover and began scribbling in it as fast as he could with an enchanted quill. He muttered to himself as he conceptualized the perfect plan.
"Which of your friends is most likely to read someone else's private journal," he asked without looking up.
"Pinkie," Twilight answered without much thought.
Discord snapped the tome shut and gazed into the tank. The girls had long since left their seats to lounge about or amuse themselves. Pinkie was in the corner creating a house of cards but with books.
"Perfect," he breathed. Discord teleported his plant into the tank and sneakily added it to the structure. Then he knocked out the bottom book in the stack.
The tower collapsed in a pile just as she was about to place the next book. "Oopsie," she giggled, then began sifting through the wreckage. She blinked, coming across a book she didn't remember seeing before.
"It doesn't actually make much sense for me to accidentally leave my journal in the tank," he mused.
"They ate packing peanuts," argued Twilight flatly, not looking away from the window.
"Fair point."
Pinkie's eyes grew wide as she read the cover of the book. She glanced around warily before cracking it open. Her eyes scanned feverishly over the words as she flipped slowly through the pages.
Twilight grinned, rubbing her hooves together in breathless anticipation.
Pinkie's mouth dropped open in shocked disbelief.
"Here we go," laughed Twilight. "Any moment now, she's going to tell the rest of them and-"
Her words stopped abruptly as Pinkie ripped the page out of the book and stuffed it in her mouth. Then she did another page and another page. She went on, reading and eating.
Twilight and Discord watched in stunned silence as Pinkie continued surreptitiously devouring the pages.
"She's… destroying the evidence," murmured Twilight. "They don't even care if it's all lies; they just want to carry on without being confronted with that reality."
"I don't believe this. I chronicled my delight in watching the turmoil unfold between you all and referred to them as 'feeble-minded dopes;' she should be outraged."
Twilight laid her head down on the desk in defeat. "Well… I think that's checkmate. There's officially nothing in this world that's more appealing to them than shoving their heads in the sand. The mental tools they need to escape this have been completely dismantled. I can lead them to water but I can't make them drink. You might as well just go; there's no reason for you to be here anymore… I hope you're happy."
When she looked up, he was gone.
"Can't believe this," she whined. "This was supposed to be an amazing paradigm shift and all it did was facilitate our destruction." There was some consolation in stopping it early but she'd still lost her friends. Now what? She couldn't just leave the town like this. It had already been frozen for weeks. She suddenly remembered the unthinkable words of the psychiatrist who'd seen things for what they really were, unsalvageable. She couldn't destroy Ponyville; it didn't matter anyway. It would probably destroy itself ultimately but regardless, she couldn't live there anymore. She'd have to tell Celestia now and then she'd probably have to replace all six of them as the Elements of Harmony.
Twilight just laid there, draped over the counter, paralyzed with despair for untold minutes, or was it hours? She moped in the library and fretted awake in bed, looking at old photos of better times. She came to the window again in the morning to check on her former friends but said nothing to them, just sat there, staring.
Suddenly there came a loud boom from behind, jolting her upright in her seat. She whirled around to see a pair of flaming tire tracks stretching away down the hall. Her eyes followed the flames to see Discord stepping out of a gray modified Delorean. He whipped a silver visor from his eyes and scampered up to her excitedly.
"Twilight, you are not going to believe this. I was out galavanting across the multiverse when I just so happened to find an alternate dimension where all of the conspiracies your friends subscribe to are real but your alternate friends who live there don't believe any of them and are reviled as nutcases by alternate you. So I just switched them all with each other."
"You what?" gasped Twilight.
Discord wagged a claw in the air. "Now, don't knock it till you've tried it." He teleported the both of them into the tank and gestured excitedly at the group. "Go ahead, ask them about their beliefs."
Twilight sighed dubiously. "Fluttershy, do you like birds?"
"I love birds," she chimed.
Twilight smiled in surprise and looked hopefully back at Discord.
"What happened at Cadance and Shining's wedding?"
"Oh, the changelings attacked Canterlot on their own accord. Luna was completely innocent and never actually banished to the moon. You can tell she's still the real Luna by looking really closely at her cutie mark. They can't fake that."
Discord cringed at the overly detailed but technically still factual recount of the royal wedding.
Twilight's face quickly morphed into a disgruntled frown.
"Rainbow, what shape is the moon?" she asked warily.
"It's a sphere… but the government is covering it up," Rainbow continued with conviction. "They altered all the images in books to make it look like a cube and the reason it looks like a cube when you look at it in the sky is because of atmospheric… dispersion or something."
Twilight turned slowly back to Discord with a pinched expression. "You're telling me that you found alternate Elements of Harmony who are equally as insane as the others but in a way that sort of lines up with our reality if you squint at it?"
"Eeee…yes. You are not wrong when you phrase it like that. So they have some residual… quirkiness but, might I add, alternate you thought that this was a great idea."
Was she missing something in replacing her friends with their alternates? Her lips curled in disgust as she recalled how irreparably broken and obnoxious her actual friends had become. "Ugh. I guess this is fine," she muttered. "Their beliefs are still stupid but in a superficial way that seems innocuous enough. Maybe it'll even become endearing in time. What about the rest of Ponyville?"
"Already taken care of."
She leaned in close to him and growled ominously. "Fix that board, never ever touch it again and maybe I won't speak a word of this to Celestia."
"Deal."
Twilight put on a strained smile and turned to her new old friends. "Well, girls, it looks like we've won another victory over evil. Let's all go to Sugar Cube Corner to celebrate; I'm buying."
The group cheered in excitement, a welcome return to unity and happiness.
"Okay," agreed Pinkie. "Just don't ask the Cakes about how their business is a front for an illegal torture dungeon because it actually isn't."
Twilight chuckled anxiously at Pinkie's unsolicited advice. "Yep… let's… definitely not say anything like that."
Author's Note
If you’d like to support this insanity, you can buy one of my novels.
